Parliamentary crossbenchers have united to back Senator Lidia Thorpe in calls for the federal government to address First Nations deaths in custody and child removals.
The group are urging the government to implement all recommendations from the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and the 1997 Bringing Them Home report on the Stolen Generations.
"We need the prime minister to take leadership here and stop coming out with all of these reports and the promises of addressing First Nations justice in this country," Senator Thorpe said in Canberra on Thursday.
"If you can't ... implement the recommendations that will actually save lives."
The Labor government argue the state governments should be responsible for the outstanding recommendations in the landmark reports.
In an open letter to the prime minister, Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney and Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, the MPs called for new powers for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner to oversee progress on the recommendations, many of which have not been implemented in the three decades since they were handed down.
The letter - signed by senators David Pocock, Jacquie Lambie, and Tammy Tyrrell, and lower house MPs Andrew Wilkie, Kylea Tink, Zali Steggall, Monique Ryan, Kate Chaney, Zoe Daniel, Helen Haines, Sophie Scamps and Allegra Spender - also calls for the new national commissioner for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Young People to oversee implementation of the Bringing them Home report recommendations.
“Successive governments have failed to implement the majority of recommendations from these reports, several decades after they have been handed down,” Thorpe wrote in the letter.
"“The lack of a coordinated approach and urgent implementation of these recommendations has led to the continuing worsening of conditions for First Peoples, and many lives lost.”
At a press conference in Canberra on Thursday, Thorpe said implementation of the recommendations was a "tangible and achievable step the government should take in this term."
“It is supported by the current Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commissioner and we hope the government will support such a basic measure without delay," she said.
Closing the Gap data revealed last month that rates of Indigenous deaths in custody, children in out of home care and suicide are worsening and rates of incarceration of First Nations children is not improving.
Productivity Commission data this year also showed the overall rate of deaths in custody is at its highest in more than a decade.
On Friday, health ministers from states and territories will join their federal counterpart Mark Butler for a roundtable with Indigenous health leaders.
"I'm sure one of the agenda items ... will be a discussion about outstanding recommendations from the royal commission, particularly around culturally safe healthcare in prisons," Mr Butler said on Thursday.
Senator Thorpe said all states and territories should remove hanging points from prisons, which was one of the recommendations.
"I've had young fellas actually demonstrate how it's done," she said.
"Removing hanging points won't only save First People in this country, removing hanging points would save other people also who are taking their lives in the system.
"Prisoners don't have Medicare, prisoners don't have NDIS, prisoners don't have access to PBS (pharmaceutical benefits scheme) like everybody else, so we have people inside the system there on remand, who haven't been sentenced, who have diabetes and can't access their diabetic medication."
Senator Lambie said hundreds of First Nations people had died in custody since the 1991 royal commission was tabled in parliament.
"Four of those deaths have occurred this year, and we are only in March," she said.
"Like many reports and royal commissions, successive governments ignore the recommendations.
"This government has said time and again they are committed to improving the lives of Aboriginal people, I don't understand why they haven't done it already."
Mr Wilkie said it was unconscionable that decades after both reports, most recommendations had not been implemented.
"While we delay, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids continue to be disproportionately represented in out-of-home care and we regularly witness Indigenous people dying in custody, this is unacceptable," he said.
"Yes, the voice to parliament failed, so it's now time for the government to move on and implement real, tangible and effective reforms to protect and promote the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people."
